


Refuge

by GalekhXigisi



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: A singular Stranger Things reference, Abuse, Angst with a Happy Ending, F slur, I Die By My Own Sword, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Implied/Referenced Sex, Implied/Referenced Underage Sex, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Sex Talk, Talk of sex, Trans Male Richie Tozier, Trans Richie Tozier, Transphobia, no beta we die like men
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-10
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-14 02:28:19
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20593175
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GalekhXigisi/pseuds/GalekhXigisi
Summary: Maggie Tozier wants to understand her son. She gets just that, and then an entire set of children she now cares for as well.





	Refuge

Maggie Tozier really did try to understand her child. She _ really _ did, honestly, but she doesn’t exactly understand the child as much as she thinks she should. One day, Rosemary was a happy girl with a trashy mouth _ (she has no idea where he learned it, she was sure her husband watched his mouth around her), _ and the next she’s asking why Stan has a pecker and she doesn’t because _ I’m a boy, too, Mama, I swear. _ She stares then, unsure of how to respond. Her daughter was beyond just confused, even more so than she had been earlier but now a million times worse. 

She stutters over her words, trying to explain that _ that’s just not how it is, my dear. _ Rosemary sobs, only five years old and breaking down because _ I’m a boy, Mama, really! I’m a boy! _ She cries, even far after Wentworth was home and tried his best to calm down the sobbing child. 

They tried to understand, especially when the little breakdowns don’t stop. It doesn’t help that one day, Rosemary says to her mother, _ I like the name Richie better than Rosemary. _ She doesn’t give context, but she stops responding to _ she _ and insists that _ he _ and _ Richie _ are the only things that he’ll respond to. 

Maggie does her best to help with what she can. She doesn’t understand her _ son. _ She had tried for a daughter. After so many miscarriages and broken sobs and failed pregnancy tests, she had finally been able to conceive a child, a _ daughter. _ All the children before had been boys, something her twin sister had concluded were born to die in this family after she, herself, lost many sons of her own, four of then, to be exact. She wants to understand, really, so she at least _ tries _ to get him to explain. 

She sits down with the boy, frowning. She really _ does _ want to be able to help. Her child was only seven now, sitting there on his bed just after Stan had left. She folds her hands over her lap, softly asking, “Rosemary, _ honey,-” _

“It’s Richie,” he corrects with a calm expression, looking at his comic book without a singular hitch, not minding the slip-up. 

“Sorry, dear,” she speaks, frowning, “I just… I don’t understand, honey.” 

He closes the comic book. He’s patient with her, just like how he is when he listens to Stan have a meltdown because his parents had said they wanted a second child. Richie just peers at her beneath the thick-rimmed glasses, thick eyelashes fluttering as he watches her. 

She hates how he can see through her now, even as a child, all too full of knowledge. “Just… Please, try to explain to me, Richie. I don’t understand it. You’re a beautiful girl. You had me cut your hair short and now you want me to call you a boy and change your name…” She trails off, trying to be patient with herself like he is with her, like Richie is when Wentworth is irritable after work and impossible to deal with without the patience of a saint. She silently hopes he’ll never lose that quality, even if he’s got the mouth of a sailor when he’s older. “Just… Please, Richie? I really do want to understand.” 

Richie nods, slow and patient. He looks just like his mother did when she was young. He’s got his fathers’ sharp features, though, and his little splatter of freckles. He has his mothers’ porcelain skin, milky white with dark shadows. She could never find a brand of makeup with her shade. But Richie is patient, softly supplying, “It feels icky.” 

She frowns at her son. “I still don’t…” 

“The girls in class, I don’t like being with them. It makes me feel icky, like when bugs crawl on you.” The seven-year-old scratches at his arm, brows knit. “And my chest starts to hurt and I want to cry. And being called Rosemary… It makes me wanna be sick.” 

Maggies’ skin crawls unhappily, beyond just saddened that she ever made her child feel like that. What kind of mother _ was _ she? She had been making her child feel like this. She listens with her ears pricked, stomach churning as her son explains how it makes him feel to hear his name and to be told he’s a girl over and over again. And when it’s finally all said and done, she goes and lays with her husband, sobbing to him about it. 

She does what she thinks will be best. She moves out of Derry for a few months, the family of three doing their best to accommodate to Richies’ needs. His name is changed, the entire family changes their names. Wentworth changed his name from his last name to his wives’, taking _ Tozier _ instead. His wife smiles as she presents the early birthday present, though the child is confused because _ What the fuck kind of name is Richard Rosemary Tozier? _ Wentworth was rather confused as to why his seven-year-old had such a trashy mouth. 

When they move back to Derry six months later, it was as if the entire town had forgotten the family. Memories flooded back to the three, though they were all rather confused. How could almost an entire town forget the trash-talking child and two adults that always tried to be a part of the community when they could? She just discards it as - as Richie would say - _ a sucky fucking town with old bats that don’t know fucking shit. _ That had gotten him suspended and left Stanley red in the cheeks when he heard it. 

She really does try to be one of the guarenteed constants in his life. Richie was growing and there wasn’t much she could do. She watches him distance himself, watches her soft baby-faced son get even sharper features and hair get curlier and wilder as they go. He was still their little shit of a son, yes, but he was distancing himself. Wentworth and Maggie both took jobs, at work more than at home. It had devolved into a mutual distancing, a neglect Maggie knew. However, bills needed to get paid and she wanted to be able to get her son the care he needed because blood had stained his legs and she had watched her son scream and cry about it. He didn’t want that. He didn’t want that monthly bitch that left him in so much pain that he missed school or was practically incapacitated more often than not. She absolutely hates seeing him curled up in his bed, gritting his teeth and barring it because Motrin had been recalled in the town and ibuprofen just didn’t work hard enough. 

She sees him come home with a dejected look and he smells like shit, covered in drain water. He doesn’t give a comment, completely ignoring her as he goes and gets in the shower. She can see the steam as the lights flick off. She had long since stopped asking why he showered with the lights off, just choosing to take it with a stride like she had everything else that had come into her life. She just accepts when he throws on boxers and a large shirt before sitting beside her and breaking down into sobs. She questions him about the bandage on his hand, but she doesn’t get answers because he only cries harder. 

She hears the rumors, though. Maggie knew everyone in that tiny damn town, of _ course, _ she heard them. Sonia Kaspbrak sure did love to shit talk about her son, sure loved to make sure everyone in the town knew the rumors that Richie was _ a “fucking fairy faggot.” _ She didn’t like those words, especially not from the woman who had no right to parent her son. She didn’t claim he wasn’t. She didn’t disprove the town. No, but she stuck up with them. Why the fuck did it matter if her son liked dick? Was he banging them? It’s not like Richie didn’t know what a condom was, so there wasn’t a chance he’d be getting pregnant any time soon. He was rather adamant that he and Eddie were going to move in together and adopt a pomeranian when they got the chance to get out of this shit town. She was at least proud of him for having a plan and getting a job so he could follow through with it. 

Eventually, he sits her down with a red face because Maggie had come home early and found her son fooling around in his room with Eddie Kaspbrak on top of him. All she had wanted to know was what he wanted for dinner before walking in on a scene she never wanted to ever see again. He stumbles over the fact that _ yes, _ he does like boys, but that doesn’t make him a girly boy like the ones at school always called him. He’s still a boy and he doesn’t want it to be any different than it had been before, even if now he was smooching on someone he wasn’t before. 

She takes it like she took his first coming out, though far much quicker and better than she had. She had just smirked and laughed her way through it because _ God, that’s great, the only good girl in this town is Bev and she’s just your friend. It’d be shit if you dated anyone else here. _

And Richie blushes because _ That’s gross, I would never date Beverly _ ** _or_ ** _ any other girl in this town, for that matter! _

He blushes a million times harder when Maggie asks Eddie if he wants to stay for dinner. She’s even more surprised that the fifteen-year-old actually accepts her invitation to eat with them, especially after _ that. _

At dinner, Richie does assure his mother, “We at least know what condoms are and to use them.” 

Maggie chokes on her spaghetti and Eddie spews water everywhere. 

“What? If I’m getting my brains fucked out by a virgin, I at least want to be safe!” 

Eddie shuts him up by shoving his hand over his… Friends’? Boyfriends’ mouth? The boys had never specified. He yelps when Richie licks his hand, flinching back and making sure he grimaces at the other. 

“I sucked your dick earlier, don’t act like me licking your hand is that gross,” Richie yells with a frown on his face. 

Maggie laughs as the two boys fight. That’s how Wentworth finds them, sitting around the table with food long forgotten. Maggie doesn’t intervene until Richie says, “If you don’t shut the fuck up, I’m going to suck your dick right here, right now.” The only reason she stops him is because she knows her son and she knows he isn’t kidding in the very least. 

Surprisingly, all Wentworth says is, _ Yeah, Rich, you do you. _

She does like his group of friends, though. She loves the little collection of misfits a lot. They were all kind, even if Eddie was the first to attack and Richie always stirred the fire without remorse. He loved watching them fight, knowing that it was never actually anything serious. Maggie rarely ever intervened because Bev would say _ Beep beep, Richie _ and the boy would be silenced within a singular moment, not even fighting them on it as he clammed his mouth shut. Bill was kind as could be, always courteous and making sure the others are included. Mike was the exact same, though he was quiet and calculated than the others were. Beverly did make sure Ben knew that he was being heard and that no one minded taking a few extra moments to hear him out. For now, they had all the time in the world. 

She finds herself taking them in like strays. She finds Eddie over at her house more and more. She doesn’t mind when he’s over, though she does tell him to keep the door open at least three inches, not that it exactly matters. The walls were thin enough that she was rather sure she could hear everything that went on outside of whispering, and even then she hears the low grumble of it. 

She doesn’t question when Bill shows up with tears running down his face, his eye bruised, black around it. Richie was there, walking with him. Instead, she gets him an icepack and teaches him how to cover up bruises with makeup _ (at his insistence, not her own). _ Beverly shows up the next day with bruises around her wrists and a handprint on her neck and side. Maggie lets her sleep on the couch without hesitation, not minding when she stays for a week and a half. Richie doesn’t mind in the least, either, happy that his two friends were with him, the next two weeks spent with the two taking refuge at the Toziers’ home. 

The third happened an entire two months later when Stan showed up, not saying much. Richie, however, seemed to know what was going on because he took Stan in without a question, immediately moving to feed his friend. Later on, she always made sure to feed him, inviting him to dinner every chance she got. She rarely ever got turned down. She never questioned him, never asked if things were alright at home. Instead, she just listened and let him stay when he needed a place, an unspoken agreement between the two that was never disputed. 

She doesn’t ask why Mike won’t eat meat. Instead, she just offers him whatever she thinks she can make a vegetarian. She learns new recipes for when he comes over, learns how to cook things she never thought she would be able to learn, much less cook. She was never the best cook to even begin with, honestly, but she wasn’t going to confess that when she didn’t have to. 

Ben, however, didn’t ever have to stay for anything outside of the occasional yelling match with his mothers. His mothers, thankfully, were kind to their son, much kinder than so many of the adults in Derry. That was far better than she could say about most of the adults here. With everyone being isolated, abused, neglected, or fuck knows what else in this godforsaken town, she’s at least happy to provide shelter for the children here, even if the town believes the lie Maggie used to cover for Bens’ mothers. _ “They’re just fucking friends, Nancy, stop being a twat and let them be.” _ She didn’t care in the least when Nancy started a rumor that the woman of the Tozier house was a fairy herself, despite being in a more than happy relationship with her husband. 

The town may have been shit as could be, but at least Maggie knew she could keep a few of the children safe, even if it was just temporary. It was still progress, nonetheless. 

**Author's Note:**

> I love Richie, so here's this little mess of words that I couldn't keep focus on. 
> 
> Please leave comments! I take constructive criticism! 
> 
> Please join my Discord server!  
https://discord.gg/eGkwayy


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